A report from the field. The return to the Northeast after years in the Southwest.

Sunday, April 4, 2010

Is this a village? I think this is a village.

I've never stopped to wonder, I guess, whether this "town" was just that..a town, a city, a village. When surveys ask you if you live "rural" or "urban", there's no category for life in between. This is the first morning walk that made me wonder just what this adopted "community" we live in is as I sucked in what feels like the first morning air of true Spring and passed daffodils and the hotel maintenance guy sweeping the walkway on my way to the bakery to buy hot cross buns. It's Easter. I don't hear kids screaming for Easter eggs ( it's a village after all, I know they're somewhere) but I suspect parents everywhere have woken as early as they did on Christmas. or maybe Easter Egg hunts are reserved for afternoon romps on hillsides and backyards. So back to the daffodils. A row of them yellow, bright and alert as I walked towards the mix of yeast scents and wood oven aromas from the bakery and restaurant at the corner of Beach and Main. My head went to what village life must be like in France this morning. Provence. Or Tuscany for that matter or any European spot on the map. Flowers. Fresh bread. Sidewalks swept. This is Spring. And this is Maine. I'll look up the guidelines of "village" categorization later.